NationStates Jolt Archive

What's your opinion of Noam Chomsky, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the worst, and 10 being the best? Vote away!!!

Please post your thoughts, too, how you voted and why, if you would.

Guess I should've put the word 'gay' or 'God' in the title. :(

that might have made it a bigger magnet.

I voted 5 cause I don't know enough about him to make a judgement one way or the other.

Who? Linky appreciated.

self obsorbed, self hating, paranoid US hating, holocaust denying ( he wrote the intro for a holocaust denial book and declared it excellent scholarship and a must read) English professor. How in the heck an English prof. turns in to a bastion of political thought, I don't care to think about.

Who? Linky appreciated.

A linguist, communist, and friend of Howard Zinn.

self obsorbed, self hating, paranoid US hating, holocaust denying ( he wrote the intro for a holocaust denial book and declared it excellent scholarship and a must read) English professor. How in the heck an English prof. turns in to a bastion of political thought, I don't care to think about.

He also denied the Khmer Rouge genocide as "anti-communist propaganda." :rolleyes:

He's an idiot for living in the U.S. If he hates it so much, he should either:

A)Get off his lazy ass and do something to make it 'better';
B)Move the f*** out

Noam Chomsky (in my opinion and most academics) is probably the smartest man alive!

He is incredibly annoying but I hope he hangs around for awhile. He's the intellectual Michael Moore of the left. Keep up the good work Naom.

Hmm. To me, it seems as though he's up there with the intelligence, but rather misguided when it comes to some things. All in all, I say it balances out to a 5 or 6 in my opinion.

EDIT:
Scratch that, a solid 5.

I happened to like Howard Zinn's book.

Even with all of the class-conflict ideology.

Noam Chomsky (in my opinion and most academics) is probably the smartest man alive!

As an academic I have to disagree. I may like his polotics more than Bush's but he doesn't strike me as all that intelligent.

In his actual field of expertise - liguistics - his theories change constantly because he seems more interested in deriving liguistics from a priori considerations than actually studying how language works in the real world. So it's hardly surprising then that his theories always prove faulty when people actually compare them to reality.

As far as politics go, he strikes me as the sort of person who isn't interested in understanding his opponent's point of view - never a hallmark of intelligence in my books.

Having said that, I agree with a lot of his views on politics, I just don't think much of him himself.

As an academic I have to disagree. I may like his polotics more than Bush's but he doesn't strike me as all that intelligent.

He's intelligent enough to spell "politics" correctly.

He can be dry and boring at times. You have to really listen to what he's saying. If you can get over him being dry and boring, he's rather brilliant.

As an academic I have to disagree. I may like his polotics more than Bush's but he doesn't strike me as all that intelligent.

In his actual field of expertise - liguistics - his theories change constantly because he seems more interested in deriving liguistics from a priori considerations than actually studying how language works in the real world. So it's hardly surprising then that his theories always prove faulty when people actually compare them to reality.

As far as politics go, he strikes me as the sort of person who isn't interested in understanding his opponent's point of view - never a hallmark of intelligence in my books.

Having said that, I agree with a lot of his views on politics, I just don't think much of him himself.

damn, that's right, liguistics, not English. forgot.

Wait .... so if George Bush unilaterally attacks a sovereign nation based on bad intelligence, he's hailed as "sticking to his guns"; but if Noam Chomsky unilaterally denies major genocides as "mindless propoganda", he's called a "closed-minded fool"?

Gee, ma, I'm a bit confused.

Wait .... so if George Bush unilaterally attacks a sovereign nation based on bad intelligence, he's hailed as "sticking to his guns"; but if Noam Chomsky unilaterally denies major genocides as "mindless propoganda", he's called a "closed-minded fool"?

Gee, ma, I'm a bit confused.

I'll clear things up: They're both close-minded fools.

He's intelligent enough to spell "politics" correctly.

He can be dry and boring at times. You have to really listen to what he's saying. If you can get over him being dry and boring, he's rather brilliant.

All I'm saying is that none of the people I consider intelligent are quite as arrogantly sure of always being right as he seems. Actually, I'm one of the odd people who doesn't find him dry or boring. I just think he's opinionated - the comparison someone made to Micheal Moore is quite appropriate.

I'm a liberal, and on key issues I agree with Chomsky, but I don't really respect how he seems to form his opinions.

I think his approach to linguistics is indicative of his general approach to thinking. He comes up with a theory that is aesthetically appealing to him and not immediately contradicted by the evidence at hand and assumes that it is therefore right. That's just sloppy thinking.

As for my spelling of 'politics', it's a bit low to attack an obvious typo.

i love noam chomsky

even when he's wrong he makes you think

Had a friend who refused to watch the movie Black Hawk Down. I had just seen it and thought it an excellent movie. I could understand not liking it as a movie but she absolutely refused to even watch it. I asked her why. She said she had read an interview of Mr. Chomsky and he said it was all lies and pro-US propaganda so she refused to see it.
I thought, fair enough of Chomsky to have that opinion but to not even consider watching it because of what one man said was strange.

Noam Chomsky (in my opinion and most academics) is probably the smartest man alive!

Stephi, your opinion I accept, most academics is steeeeeetching it way too far.

Most academics of what political persuasion from what area working in which institutions in what country? Or do you really know most of them in the world?

I am an academic and I find him to be over arrogant and too fond of opining without evidence. I would say he has his followers, but most academics that I have been around really could not care less about him.